Russian defence expenditure has been increased to RUB2.95 trillion (USD51.35 billion) for 2018, budgetary documentation released by the Russian government has confirmed. The new total represents an 8% increase over the total initially planned for 2018.

Budget execution data released by the Russian Federal Treasury in March confirmed the increase. The additional funding will see defence spending rise from 16.9% of government spending in 2017 to 17.9% under the new budget, but spending will also fall from around 3.2% of gross domestic product to 3.1%.

Under the draft budget for 2018 released by the Finance Ministry in September, expenditure on national defence had been expected to fall by around 5.1% from the RUB2.88 trillion approved under the 2017 budget to RUB2.73 trillion in 2018.

See, this is what I was thinking. There is just far too much information that is....Not consistent. As someone else stated, they do it on purpose. Initial plan was 2.8% of GDP but now that wont happen till after 2020, so its 3.1% of GDP. And even after 2020, they are keeping it around 3% as they said. So it looks like overall defense spending is up.

Kimppis wrote:And budget spending should start increasing quite rapidly from 2019. It's true that they're probably too conservative, but what can you do...

The defence budget is going to be tied to GDP, if the economy does well so will the budget, if not it will be a bad year for the military. This is a poor way to allocate resources that depend on long lead commitments.

Russian defence expenditure has been increased to RUB2.95 trillion (USD51.35 billion) for 2018, budgetary documentation released by the Russian government has confirmed. The new total represents an 8% increase over the total initially planned for 2018.

Budget execution data released by the Russian Federal Treasury in March confirmed the increase. The additional funding will see defence spending rise from 16.9% of government spending in 2017 to 17.9% under the new budget, but spending will also fall from around 3.2% of gross domestic product to 3.1%.

Under the draft budget for 2018 released by the Finance Ministry in September, expenditure on national defence had been expected to fall by around 5.1% from the RUB2.88 trillion approved under the 2017 budget to RUB2.73 trillion in 2018.

Tiresome to see nominal exchange rate estimates of the Russian military budget. Considering the fact that the PPP for the defense sector is higherthan for the consumer sector (not surprising since Russians pay western prices for consumer junk) a good estimate of the Russian spending on defenseis $300+ billion US dollars. American leaders, who are congenital idiots, look at the nominal exchange based valuations and think that Russia spends16 times less than the US and is thus 1/16 the power that the USA is. With a more realistic $300 PPP expenditure and accounting for the gross bloatof the US empire (800 bases abroad), Russia has a very similar core military expenditure to the USA.

i would not directly say it is exactly about oil prices.... but certainly a good oil price means more spending money available for the Russian government... just the same as with the US government ironically.

I recently read an article that mentioned US sanctions end up increasing the price of oil, and all trumps war rhetoric like attacks on Syria and threats to Iran and its personnel choices like the new war friendly pompus ass, and that guy with the Thomas Magnum moustache not to mention economic sanctions all seem to be pushing up the price of oil... because Trump is an idiot... he thinks the price of oil is market driven... but it is not... it is driven by fear of war in the Middle East...

Well anyway... this is the related article:

Sputnik Article

But of course the real issue is remaining assets... Russia is not laying down 20 Boreis because it still has quite a few Delta IVs... and in an ideal situation it really only needs a total of 8 Boreis because Boreis carry the naval component of the triad of nuclear weapons... they are allowed a total of 1,500 warheads at most across all three services... that means 500 land based, 500 air based and 500 sea based strategic missiles... 8 Boreis with 16 missile tubes each and about 4 warheads per missile means 512 warheads... the missiles themselves have a capacity of 10 warheads, meaning 4 warheads per missile still allows plenty of room for decoys and other bits and pieces...

Of course with the Yasen... they really are expensive... so a bit of extra oil money could really help there, yet they do have quite a few older vessels available to them.

Defence spendig is cut because there are no funds. Part of the funds will be transferred to other purposes. The Russian economy is in stagnation. Russia wants to further reduce defense spending to 2.8%GDP.

The Russian economy is dependent on oil prices. Russia is cutting defense spending.

No. The rearmament program forecasted down-turns in funding.. AFAIK its a planned reduction.

Unlike the West, Russia is currently feeding money to its MIC only as required to fund the rearmament programs, not just to satisfy the MICs private owners desires... It's OK, I'm sure most people in the the West would be astonished about such a revolutionary concept, so its OK to be incredulous.

Arrow wrote:Of course, that's why the T-14, T-50 program will come in late Russia needs to spend more on defense, But has very limited finances.

Frankly speaking, the T-14 and T-50 programs are not priorities.They can afford to take it slow and cut down some of the initial procurement numbers. It will cut costs and also mean that the systems are more mature when they finally are introduced en masse.

With the exception of some of the ships and subs; everything else that's a priority has been introduced on schedule.

"At $66.3 billion, Russia’s military spending in 2017 was 20% lower than in 2016, the first annual decrease since 1998.Military modernization remains a priority in Russia,but the military budget has been restricted by economic problems that the country has experienced since 2014"

George1 wrote:"At $66.3 billion, Russia’s military spending in 2017 was 20% lower than in 2016, the first annual decrease since 1998.Military modernization remains a priority in Russia,but the military budget has been restricted by economic problems that the country has experienced since 2014"

https://twitter.com/SIPRIorg/status/991565535698702337

Loads of money over previous years went into paying for surface warships that were never built or delivered

They just stopped dumping cash into surface navy and went on as usual so I don't expect any changes in capability

In the future, Russia will spend even less. Now Russia is in the fourth place in defense spending but in future it will be five or six place. Being far even behind China and India

Saudi arabia and india have to pay very big prices for systems they don't produce. Just look at the contract they sign with western companies, half of russian budget only for a couple of fighters or two or three frigates.

Russia produce its own systems and is far better equiped than both of them.

France and UK have small armies but the budget of russia. They still lack behind russia far away. They don't have counterpart to S-300/400, they have far less subs, no supersonic missiles, no anti radar missiles, no long range bombers, no ground based ICBM, no jaming capabilities, no landing ships (don'T say mistral class they are big targets for any antiship missile even the first generation of anti ship missile could destroy tgem), small amount of fighters, small amount of tanks, no pantsir/tor/buk equivalent. They only have small amount of frigates capable of firing cruise missile while russian missile boats can and every new plateform can. They don't have 5tg generation fighter but rely on USA.

Only USA and china can compete with Russia but yet they have to keep an eye on each other so no one wants to push russia on the side if the other one.

I would rather spend like russia 50 billion for my own priduce than 70 billion to equip a small army with the "best".

You can´t compare simple numbers without eliminating inaccurancies like manipulated exchange rates or without taking purchasing power into consideration.What Russia spends on defence is like 400 Billion in Amiland.China is spending a lot of money, but they buy a lot of stuff in Russia. And for the most part a lot of their army and air force is stuck in the 80´s, so they still have a lot of catching up to do.

Hole wrote:Where do you get your "Information" from, Arrow? The Economist?

You can´t compare simple numbers without eliminating inaccurancies like manipulated exchange rates or without taking purchasing power into consideration.What Russia spends on defence is like 400 Billion in Amiland.China is spending a lot of money, but they buy a lot of stuff in Russia. And for the most part a lot of their army and air force is stuck in the 80´s, so they still have a lot of catching up to do.

US are more paid and their stuff costs more that doesn't mean they fight better.

China needs to catch up russia and US in terms of technology. They are still buying russian state of art techno because theirs is not ready.

China now to catch up russia technology. They are already building aircraft carriers, many modern destroyers, developed ABM Hito to kill technologies, J-20 goes into service. In the coming years, they will defeat Russia in everything.

George1 wrote:"At $66.3 billion, Russia’s military spending in 2017 was 20% lower than in 2016, the first annual decrease since 1998.Military modernization remains a priority in Russia,but the military budget has been restricted by economic problems that the country has experienced since 2014"

Russia cuts military spending for first time over past 19 years - reportWorld military expenditure reached $1739 bln in 2017, the highest level since the end of the Cold War

STOCKHOLM, May 2. /TASS/. Russia reduced its military spending last year for the first time since 1998, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its report.

"Russia’s military spending fell by 20 per cent to $66.3 billion, making it the fourth largest spender," the document said. "The Russian economy has suffered a number of setbacks since 2014, including a significant drop in oil export revenues, and government spending has been falling since then. However, military spending kept increasing until 2017, when it fell for the first time since 1998."

"The fall in spending in 2017 brought the military burden down to 4.3 per cent of GDP, from 5.5 per cent in 2016. However, this share of GDP was still higher than any other European country had recorded since 2011," the report said.

World military expenditure reached $1739 bln in 2017, the highest level since the end of the Cold War.

The United States remained a global leader in military spending ($610 bln), which accounted for more than a third of the world total in 2017. The US spending was 2.7 times greater than the next highest spender, China. China earmarked an estimated $228 bln to its military last year, an increase of 5.6 per cent compared with 2016. However, this was the lowest increase since 2010.

"Driven by the perceived threat from Russia" many countries in Central Europe increased their military expenditure by 12 per cent.